Blackenburg
Senior Citizens Oesig
Senior Center

The site is located in the region of the Harz, with its impressive landscape, on the fringes of the small historical resort town Blankenburg. The project addresses and mediates in its context between the adjacent single-family houses, the East German prefabricated blocks and the landscape.

The contextual diversity of scale is resolved on both an urban and architectural level. The program of the nursing home addresses the large-scale forms of the neighbouring East German blocks, reinterpreting the volume and architecturally breaking up its scale. The housing units for the elderly add up to form a U shaped building with an enclosed courtyard.  The buildings organize themselves around landscaped courtyards that slope down the hill, relating to each other visually and connecting physically. The courtyards form the identity of the Senior Citizens´ Centre and create outdoors microcosms for various forms of occupation - like gardening, formal and informal meeting spaces in the piazza, etc. The open spaces mediate between the buildings and the landscape and allow for the latter to flow through the ensemble.

The piazza articulated as a stone platform, interlocks with the building of the nursing home to create a public ground floor with a cafeteria, shops and offices for doctors and therapists. The point of junction of the two results in a large glazed surface in the façade that offers a unique panoramic view onto the rolling landscape.